Operation Croissant banned

The Homicide and Major Organised Crimes Command unit of
the Metropolitan Police recently contacted organisers of Operation Croissant to
tell them that their plan to hand out free croissants to commuters in London is
banned as a “corrupt practice” under section 114 of the Representation of the
People Act 1983.

Section 114 falls under the heading “Bribery, treating
and undue influence”. Section 113 deals with bribery while section 114 deals
with “treating”, which is exactly what it sounds like – giving somebody a treat
to influence their decision to vote or refrain from voting.Section 114 reads:

“114 Treating.

(1 )A person shall be guilty of a corrupt practice if he is guilty of
treating.

(2) A person shall be guilty of treating if he corruptly, by himself or
by any other person, either before, during or after an election, directly or
indirectly gives or provides, or pays wholly or in part the expense of giving
or providing, any meat, drink, entertainment or provision to or for any person—

(a)for the purpose of corruptly influencing that person or any other
person to vote or refrain from voting; or

(b)on account of that person or any other person having voted or refrained
from voting, or being about to vote or refrain from voting.

(3) Every elector or his proxy who corruptly accepts or takes any such
meat, drink, entertainment or provision shall also be guilty of treating.”

Section 114(1) tells us that “corrupt practice” is the
offence and sub-section 2 sets out how the offence is committed. We see the
word “corrupt” and “corruptly” repeated several times, according to my
dictionary the word means:

“adjective

1.having
or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal
gain.

"there is a continuing fear of firms corrupting politicians in the
search for contracts"

synonyms:bribe, suborn,
buy, buy off, pay off

So, to be corrupt a person should be acting dishonestly
or causing another to do so – in the case of an election I’d suggest that means
the person giving the treat is giving the treat as payment for the voting or
the refraining from voting. Therefore, the mens rea of the offence must be that
the person giving the treat dishonestly intends that the treat will influence
the person receiving the treat to either vote or refrain from voting. You could
also argue that the person giving the treat must intend the person receiving
the treat will act dishonestly in making his or her decision to vote or not
vote. At this point, it’s worth considering the intention of Parliament when
this Act was passed and, we’ve already seen that “treating” falls into the same
category as “bribery”. What’s the difference? Section 113 requires “money” to be paid to “induce any voter to vote or refrain from
voting” while section 114 is effectively payment by anything other than
money. Therefore, we can be sure that the intention of Parliament was to stop
people being bribed for their vote.

So, the big question is, “were the plans of Operation
Croissant a crime in the UK?” To answer that we have to look at their plans and
intentions.

You can read their own words on their website. It seems
that the plan was to travel from Paris with pastries and post cards with
personal notes from Parisians that say how they feel about the UK remaining
within the EU:

“The point is to show how close we are. It’s not a grand political
gesture; it’s not designed to spark debate or court controversy. Quite the
opposite. It’s simply an act of breaking bread.”

Let’s run through the offence. Are they “giving or
providing any meat, drink, entertainment or provision”? Yes. Clearly they are. Next
we ask, is the purpose to “corruptly influence that person or any person to
vote or refrain from voting”? As we’ve seen, the Act is really asking whether
the person giving the treat is doing so corruptly to influence the receiver to
act dishonestly? I remind myself that section 114 reflects the bribery offence
in section 113. I find that I cannot conclude that Operation Croissant, based
on what they’ve said previously planned to act corruptly or to dishonestly
influence voters.

On that basis, I cannot see that their plan would have
breached section 114 of the Representation of the People Act 1983.

In saying this, I realise I am up against some pretty
stiff competition from Professor Bob Watt, a specialist on electoral law at the
University of Buckingham who takes the view that this sort of thing is clearly
a crime and that the police were correct to prevent the organisers of Operation
Croissant going ahead.

Comments

Well, I love your blog but never previously having heard of 'Operation Croissant' I had an instant WTF reaction to the content! Just loved it, though, as it came out of nowhere. In a way it's a shame you didn't hold that there was a case to answer - it may have been educational to have learned how a European Arrest Warrant might have operated in this case. Depending on the referendum result, of course!Paul_G

Jacqueline Jackson of Willowhalegreen near Winchester was standing outside the polling station offering to hold dog leashes and lend people a pen. As you may be aware, there is a certain distrust of voting procedures being expressed by people substituting their own black, permanent, pens for the pencils in the booths. (*)

The polling station officer (allegedly) called the police, who tried to stop Mrs Jackson. They sent a PCSO, which may be an indicator that the real police have looked at it and said 'not on your Nelly, I'm not getting in to politics. Send our lass, it will look better'.

The clip of what happened is available.

https://twitter.com/willowhalegreen

Note: the pen was briefly on loan, not a gift. Is this a provision, do you think?

(*) No, it does not make a difference but the very shade of mark sends a message "This is how little I trust you and your office: I reject even your stick of graphite".

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